Tigers Take Wacky Game 1 Behind Shutdown Performance From Tarik Skubal

The first game of the 2025 postseason played out exactly as scripted, plus or minus a few crazy bounces. In the Wild Card series between the Tigers and the Guardians, the aces looked like aces and the offenses looked, well, inoffensive.

Tarik Skubal, who will be picking up his second straight Cy Young in a month or so, carved up the Guardians to the tune of one (barely) earned run over 7 2/3 innings. Gavin Williams, who put up a 3.06 ERA and allowed just six runs over his final five regular season starts, returned the favor, allowing two unearned runs over six innings and change. The two starters combined for 22 strikeouts, with 14 of them coming from Skubal, who earned the win and gave Detroit a 1-0 series lead.

Skubal and Williams had some help from anemic offenses, but they did have to overcome home plate umpire Shane Livensparger, who called a small strike zone from the very beginning. He called six balls on pitches that hit the zone according to Statcast in the first three innings, three against Williams and three against Skubal. On the bright side, at least he was consistent.

Williams came in with a classic plan: Get ahead with heat, then drop the hammer. He led the Tigers off with fastballs and cutters, then looked for strike three with sweepers and big, loopy curves. He looked like he’d cruise through the first inning with a minimum of effort. Tigers leadoff hitter Parker Meadows lifted a lazy fly ball to left field on the first pitch of the game, then Gleyber Torres rolled over a four-seamer on the second pitch of the game. The Guardians had two outs on two pitches. Kerry Carpenter dutifully took his first pitch to make sure that Williams wouldn’t escape with a three-pitch inning. It was a called strike placed perfectly on the corner of the strike zone high and away. It was unhittable. It looked like an ill portent for the Tigers.

And then it didn’t. Carpenter swung at the second pitch, lining a single into right field, then advancing to second when it clunked off Johnathan Rodríguez’s glove for an error. Spencer Torkelson swung at the second pitch he saw, dumping a sweeper into left field for an RBI single. After four batters, just six pitches, and zero hard-hit balls, the Tigers had a 1-0 lead. Williams struck out Riley Greene swinging to end the inning. He looked excellent. He had barely exerted himself. But he had just staked a lead to the most dangerous pitcher in the playoffs.

Whether because they thought Skubal might be rattled after hitting David Fry in the face on a bunt attempt last week, or because they simply didn’t have any better ideas about how to get on base against him, the Guardians squared to bunt several times. They weren’t wrong that softly hit balls were Skubal’s kryptonite, but they weren’t necessarily right either. They only got one bunt down and it was unsuccessful, but two of their three hits against him came on swinging bunts. Skubal allowed two Guardians to reach base in the first three innings, a single to Kyle Manzardo, who was promptly erased on an inning-ending double play, and a four-pitch walk to, of all people, Austin Hedges.

Things got weird in the bottom of the fourth. It started with Skubal losing the zone a bit, and then with Angel Martínez absolutely obliterating a camera directly behind home plate with a foul ball. It was a one-in-a-million shot, and because the camera was located directly in front of the parabolic field microphones, the shattering of the lens guard made it sound like Stone Cold Steve Austin was about to charge down the tunnel and open a can of whoop-ass. Martínez then chopped a swinging bunt just past Skubal for a single.

After the weakest contact imaginable, Cleveland had José Ramírez up with a runner on and no outs. It was exactly the situation Detroit wanted to avoid; Skubal had to throw strikes to the only truly dangerous Guardians hitter. Or at least he had to try. He couldn’t do it, and Ramírez walked after a seven-pitch plate appearance. Cleveland had runners on first and second with no outs.

As quickly as it started, the bout of wildness passed. Skubal struck out both Rodríguez and Manzardo on three pitches. His seventh strike in a row looked like it would end the inning. Gabriel Arias tapped a chopper right back up the middle, but for the second time in the frame, it landed in the no man’s land around the pitcher’s mound. This time, the ball was located directly between the rubber and second base. Skubal rushed back to field it, but couldn’t do so cleanly. Martínez took off on contact and never slowed down for a second, just beating a high throw home from Skubal (on replay, after an initial out call). The Guardians had tied the game, 1-1, with one walk and two hits, and without hitting the ball more than four feet in the air.

That left runners on first and third with two outs, and Brayan Rocchio, remembering the way the Guardians put up two unearned runs against Skubal in his last outing of the regular season, tried to bunt for a hit. Skubal fielded this one cleanly, scooping and tossing it to first base with his glove to end the inning. He retired the next 10 batters he faced, striking out eight of them.

The Tigers struck again in the seventh inning. Greene led off with the only extra-base hit of the game, sending a gapper to the wall in right-center. The Guardians got Hunter Gaddis up in the bullpen, but not soon enough. Wenceel Pérez smashed a low line drive to first base. It caromed off the glove of the diving Jhonkensy Noel and bounced to second baseman Rocchio, who alertly fielded it and fired it back to Noel. The ball beat Pérez with plenty of time to spare, but in his haste to pick himself up and get back to first, Noel had too much momentum, which caused his foot to slip off the bag. Pérez got there before the falling Noel could get back in contact with the base, and the Tigers had first and third with no outs. Manager Stephen Vogt had seen enough. He brought in Gaddis.

Gaddis did everything the Guardians asked of him, but it wasn’t enough. He struck out catcher Dillon Dingler swinging on a fastball, then Zach McKinstry dropped a perfect safety squeeze down the first base line. Noel had no choice but to get the out at first, allowing Greene to score and giving the Tigers a 2-1 lead. Gaddis induced a groundout from Javier Báez to end the inning and close the book on Williams. He ended with six innings pitched, eight strikeouts, six hits, one walk, and — after Noel’s foot slipping off first base was retroactively ruled an error later in the game — two unearned runs. It’s hard to imagine getting much more from Williams, a 25-year-old pitcher facing off against Skubal in just the second postseason start of his career. Gaddis was also great, retiring all five of the batters he faced. But that one sacrifice bunt was all Skubal needed.

Skubal was cruising, at least until his nemesis came back to the plate. With one out in the bottom of the eighth, Hedges – the worst hitter on the worst-hitting playoff team of all time – did it again. He’d figured out the way to beat Skubal: Just don’t swing. He walked for the second time, and the Guardians very nearly put their game plan into action again. Steven Kwan hit a routine comebacker that would have made for an easy double play, but it barely bounced out of Skubal’s glove. The pitcher recovered to throw out Kwan at first, leaving Hedges on second with two outs and Martínez at the plate. That was the end of Skubal’s start, and if not for that bad bounce, he may well have come out to pitch the ninth. Detroit manager A.J. Hinch brought in Will Vest to close out the eighth and pitch the ninth.

Skubal finished with 107 pitches over 7 2/3 innings. He struck out a career-best 14. His fastball exceeded 101 mph into the seventh inning. He gave up just three walks and three hits, and two of those were swinging bunts. He surrendered just two hard-hit balls. He allowed just three balls that traveled more than 56 feet in the air. Not one of them traveled 300 feet. It was a truly dominant performance.

Things got weird again in the ninth, proving that not all of the bad bounces could be chalked up to Skubal. Ramírez led off with a groundball right up the middle off Vest. Báez made an excellent diving stop behind second base and threw to first in plenty of the time. It wasn’t a bad throw, but it did leave Torkelson with an in-between hop that he couldn’t quite handle. The ball ricochetted off his glove and right into Ramírez, who kicked it way down the first base line, then charged all the way to third base. All the Guardians needed was to score a runner form third with no outs in order to keep the game going. Vogt brought in the left-handed George Valera, a rookie with just 48 major league plate appearances under his belt but a 113 wRC+, to pinch-hit for Rodríguez, who had already struck out twice. It was a bold move. Vest struck him out swinging.

That brought Manzardo to the plate, who executed Cleveland’s signature move: a tapper back toward the mound. Unfortunately for the Guardians, the play had exhausted its magic. Vest fielded it cleanly and caught Ramírez between third and home. Wisely, he faked a throw and tagged the runner out himself.

Vogt tried the rookie card again, bringing in C.J. Kayfus to pinch-hit for Arias. It tells you everything you need to know about the Guardians offense that they pinch-hit for their no. 2 hitter in the bottom of the eighth inning, then in the bottom of the ninth, they pinch-hit for both their cleanup and their sixth batter in favor of two players with fewer than 200 combined major league plate appearances to their names. Kayfus flied out to left on the first pitch from Vest, and Tigers came away with the ballgame.

With all the momentum in the world behind the Guardians, the Tigers got exactly what they needed. Without a win from their ace, it would have been hard to envision them taking two straight in Cleveland after dropping six of their last seven against the Guardians. They now need just one win over the next two days. If neither team’s offense picks up, the Tigers will also need some more bounces to go their way.